we've got the dreamer's disease
by hypotheticalfanfic
Summary: In which we learn most of the important facts about Eames, and a few about Arthur. Eames x Arthur backstory.


Eight years in the mountain troop, and Eames was ready for sunshine. Thailand sounded promising — not Hawaii, full of bloody stupid tourists, nor South America with its far-too-near proximity to a certain point man he'd rather not see just now. Thailand, though: hot and wet and no fucking mountains to ski over. Just the place to retire.

He saluted crisply, smiled and nodded, shook hands. Drank the new recruits under the table and laughed with his old mates and kept count, in his head, of how many more minutes he'd have to endure this. Gave away all his things except the guns he wasn't supposed to have, wrote his mum a letter before remembering (_shit, shit, she died last year, shit_), sent a terse email to his idiot brother. Fucked Collins again, one last hurrah as it were, and smacked him on the ass as he left. And then boarded a plane and nearly wept, because _god, yes, it was over, it was done, he was out._

Thailand was perfect: the exact opposite of his base. He thought "polar" and almost giggled, the high manic laughter of someone on the knife-edge of sanity. Held himself back, though, and felt absurdly proud of it. Dove into the black market and bought the necessary supplies: a few boxes of ammunition and a gorgeous Khyber knife, bottles of what Ar—what an American would call "moonshine," enough sleeping pills to kill an elephant, paper, ink, and a few small things for counterfeiting purposes. It'd been too long, and the first three papers looked terrible, and Eames hated himself for not practicing as much as he should have. But it evened out, and his old skill returned before lunchtime, and he bought a bowl of something unpronounceable and spicy to celebrate. It burned as it went down, and Eames felt more alive than he'd been in his waking life for eight years.

Sated and feeling almost secure, Eames booked a room above a bordello and settled in. He took four sleeping pills and woke up a day later, parched and hungry and happy for the first time in recent memory. He drank himself to sleep and woke up underneath the bed, and laughed until his sides hurt. He ate food someone else made, he barely left his room, and he slept, and he picked up a lovely woman in Bangkok and she moved in almost immediately. He was basically happy, most of the time, and when he wasn't, she was there, or the pills, or something to drink.

Then it started again. The dreamer's disease, they'd called it in the SAS. It wasn't anything terrible, not at first: waking up soaked in sweat, clutching the gun under his pillow like a drowning man, he could deal with that. Fuzziness around the edges of his vision, not a real problem. A slow, rumbling migraine, nothing new. Then the other things started. Fatigue. Insomnia. Then the hallucinations, and the night terrors, and Eames nearly killed the woman he'd been sleeping with, and it was all just too much.

The SAS didn't take kindly to his badgering them for a small supply of Somnacin (not enough to do anything, just enough to take the edge off). He managed to bully Collins and the others into shipping him some — not nearly enough, never enough, but a bit. It took the barest hint of the pain away, and Eames seized his opportunity. Forged a good new passport under an old, carefully-selected alias, and left the country. He went to Istanbul, rented a room, and waited, knife in hand.

—-

He must have slept, because the next thing he saw was Arthur. The thin, dark-haired American sat ramrod-straight on a stool, faced Eames's sprawled form on the ratty old sofa.

"Arthur, hello. You came."

"Are you dying?" Arthur's face was still and wary, and Eames could feel the last traces of Somnacin ebbing away. The sweet-sour taste in his mouth, the relaxation of his muscles, the slight shift in his vision: they were all ending, and the rise of panic in his voice wasn't faked at all.

"Maybe."

Arthur peered at him, eyes glinting in the light that poured from one window. "Dreamer's disease, then?"

"Yes."

"They say it's a myth," but he was already up. He bent to pull a small black case from under his chair. Arthur was always prepared, and Eames could feel himself calm down a bit.

"Tell them to scan me and see if it's fake." It was a struggle to sit up, but Eames forced himself to do it. Sitting up made things easier in the long run, gave Arthur a bit of leverage after Eames was out.

"Your heart rate, is it elevated?" Arthur frowned and fiddled with a syringe. "Don't lie to me to get a bigger dose, Eames, it could kill you."

"Perhaps a tick, yes, but not much at all."

The feeling of the needle slipping into his arm was like coming home, like a good fuck and a long hot soak, and Eames heard himself say, "Thank you, love," before the darkness took him.

—-

"Well, Mr. Eames, what do you suggest we do?" Arthur looks smashing — Eames dressed him in black and grey, and he always glows in black and grey. Next to Eames in riotous plaid and khaki, Arthur looks even more brilliant than usual, and it makes Eames smile to see Arthur preen ever so slightly.

"I've heard it can be beaten, haven't you?" The hope is trickling into Eames's voice, and he can't quite keep it out.

"Not beaten as such, but eased. Something to do with," he waves a long thin hand at the buildings Eames has just noticed, "meeting someone here and finding an answer." Arthur turns to face him. "It's all a bit metaphysical for my tastes." He nods at their surroundings, which are filling in like sketches. "You usually go for cathedrals and casinos, Eames. Why are we in a tenement row?"

Eames runs one hand through his hair. "Where I grew up. Must be my default, I dunno." Arthur knew — Eames constructed dreams before he let anyone in. This was the first dream in ages he hadn't planned and built beforehand.

"I thought you grew up in Westchester." Arthur was grinning, hands shoved in pockets like a little boy (beautiful, incongruous, dressed like someone ten years older but so young), and Eames wanted to kiss him.

So he did.

—-

The world melted, just a little, and Eames pulled back (reluctant, because oh god Arthur's mouth was sweet and he'd kissed back, hungry, and wasn't _that_ fascinating and worth more investigation) to see what had changed. The tenements were still there, but they'd shifted slightly, a bit more true-to-life, a bit grimier and more broken, and Eames's breath caught in his throat, because there was his home.

"Come on," and he was pulling Arthur with him.

Sixth-floor walkup, and the ache in Eames's thigh was the same as it had always been. Arthur had lectured him once, during a break on base, about unconscious recall. About how the mind remembers things that we can't even imagine, everything we see or hear or smell, how people with eidetic memories just have access to the information we all remember but can't recall. At the time, Eames had made the "listening intently" face and slid in some lewd comments to get Arthur to blush, just a little. But apparently some of it had sunk in, and Eames felt shaken by the way the color of the walls beneath the peeling paper was exactly, perfectly right.

"You can't fool a forger." Arthur was panting, just a bit: he hated walkup stairs. "Can you?"

Eames shakes his head. "No, pet, I'd know a forgery if I saw it." There was the door, the green one, the one Eames had used in so many forges, in so many dreams.

One hand, reaching out, pushing slightly, and the door swung open.

—-

Eames will say, later, that he doesn't exactly remember what happened. Arthur will say that he stayed out of the room, gun drawn, ready for anything. Both of these are lies.

—-

_Harriet Frances Eleanor Eames (nee Chester), b. 3 April 1952 d. 14 July 2013. Beloved mother, loving wife. "People living deeply have no fear of death." - Anais Nin_

The headstone is small, elegant, and incongruous. The room is otherwise unchanged: lined with her books stacked one atop another like odd little pillars, a battered settee to one side, and large streaked windows. There is a dim, flickering light leaking from the bare bulb above them, and Eames cannot breathe because the headstone is there.

Arthur is at his side, because whatever else anyone can say about Arthur, they cannot say that Arthur leaves the ones he loves in distress.

Eames stares, and he doesn't realize that there are tears leaking from his face until one hits his shoe. He's still dressed like himself, and he feels out of place suddenly because when they lived here he wore baggy checked trousers and oversized white shirts with logos and sideways caps, not khaki and paisley and shiny shoes. He didn't wear those until she met Da, and that was a different time.

And there he is, Da, strong and tall and handsome and nothing at all like Eames, really, because he wasn't the sperm donor Mum had always refused to talk about. Eames ran to him, small and full of anger again, and like always his da picked him up and squeezed, a bit too hard, like he was making up for all the touches Eames had never had when his name was Rupert Chester and he was nicking cash and food to keep them alive.

And then Da is gone, and Eames is himself again, and the headstone is gone, and Arthur is the one hugging him, wrapped tight like he thinks Eames is going to fly into pieces at any moment.

"Mum died last year." His voice is calm, unhurried, because he understands it now.

"You missed the funeral." Arthur knows, always knows everything about him.

"I was on a mountain in Peru, so yeah, I missed it." Eames scrubs at his face, runs a hand through his hair, shakes his head like it'll make things real again.

"Aren't you supposed to talk to someone?" Arthur looks at the space where Da had been. "Does he come back and you can talk to him?"

Eames smiles, soft and warm and true like his smiles almost never are. "I'm talking to you, aren't I?"

They have another hour before the timer, and neither of them touch their guns. They sit, and they talk, and just before the timer goes (because of course Arthur is better at tracking dreamtime), Arthur says, "Do you think it worked?"

Eames shrugs, and almost manages to get, "I hope so," out of his mouth before he's opening his eyes on his sofa, Arthur lying on the floor beside him, the PASIV machine beeping softly.

Arthur's eyes snap open, and he stares up at Eames.

"I'm not sure," Eames answers, because he knows the question behind Arthur's eyes. "Maybe."

He reaches for his chip, and as he's checking it hears the rattle of Arthur's die, and they grin at each other in poorly-concealed relief: this is reality. "A drink, pet?"

The invitation is there, open and ready, and Arthur (beautiful, brilliant, stupid Arthur) does the smart thing, says no, looks sad. Packs up the PASIV and leaves, jotting down the number to an untraceable cell he always has. That's more than Eames has ever had before, and it's almost enough.

—-

Three months later, when Eames wakes up sober and mostly sane in Mombassa (he counts his steps backwards, checks his chip: it's real), he sends Arthur a text. "Yes."

Arthur replies instantly, "Try the third shop down the street for your tea."

Eames grins and steps away from his bed into the sunlight pouring through his windows. It will all be all right from here on out. When Cobb shows up a year later, Eames smiles, makes a snide comment, and goes with him, because Arthur's there and Eames still hasn't managed to kiss him in real life. Such a shame, that, but one quickly remedied.


End file.
